Invisible String

61

Ten Years Later

The house was louder than ever—but in a different way now. Less crying, more music. Less toy-strewn chaos, more shoes kicked off at the door and half-finished homework on the counter.

Lily sat cross-legged on the couch, AirPods in, scrolling through her phone with that half-bored, half-aware look only a fifteen-year-old could master. Her hair was longer now, her features sharper, but she still had that same sparkle in her eye—the one that meant she was always thinking something, even if she didn’t say it.

Across the kitchen, Mira, thirteen, leaned on the counter with a pencil in her hand and frustration written all over her face. “Why do I have to learn pre-algebra if I’m not going to be an engineer?”

“Because,” I said, walking past her with a laundry basket, “you don’t know what you don’t want to be yet. And because your teacher said you had to.”

Baylor, now twelve and endlessly full of energy, sprinted into the room chasing the dog. “Mira! Ivy said you took my charger again!”

“I did not!” Mira shouted, whirling around. “She’s lying!”

“She’s not lying,” Ivy called from the hallway, stepping into view. She was eleven now, growing tall and serious like Lily, but with an observant, gentle soul underneath it all. “I saw you use it this morning.”

“I borrowed it,” Mira huffed.

“Same difference,” Baylor muttered, grabbing it off the side table and stomping off in victory.

I set the laundry basket down and just stood there for a second, taking it all in—four kids, growing up faster than I could keep up with, each one so wildly different and yet impossibly close.

Travis walked in from the garage, a smear of grease on his shirt and a proud grin on his face. “Car battery’s changed. I officially still know what I’m doing.”

I smiled, crossing the room to kiss him quickly. “You still got it.”

He looked around at the noise, the bickering, the kids sprawled everywhere. “Man. Remember when we thought three kids would be too much?”

I snorted. “I remember you telling Jason he was out of his mind for having five.”

Lily was halfway through complaining about the group chat blowing up with homecoming plans when she suddenly froze. Her eyes narrowed toward the kitchen, where Travis and I were standing, reminiscing just a little too loudly.

“I still can’t believe we thought three kids would be it,” Travis had said, grinning as he leaned against the counter. “And now here we are, four loud, beautiful chaos-makers later.”

“Five,” I corrected gently, looking up at him with a soft smile. “We’ve always had five.”

Behind us, silence suddenly replaced the usual clatter of footsteps and voices.

“Wait… what?” came Mira’s voice, suspicious and wide-eyed from the hallway.

Then came Lily, storming in dramatically with her phone still in her hand. “Mom, I swear, if I have a sibling with a fifteen-year age gap—”

I held up both hands. “Whoa. No. No, no, no. I’m not pregnant.”

Baylor popped his head around the corner. “You’re not?”

“Definitely not,” Travis said quickly, looking mildly horrified. “There’s no baby on the way, I promise.”

Ivy was the quietest, stepping into the room slowly. “Then… what did you mean? Five?”